NeatScan To Office Software - White
by The Neat Company
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List Price: Our Price: $250.00 You Save: $29.95 (11%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: CE See more product details |
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Customers in the UK,
Buy this product at amazon.co.uk
for British Pounds
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of NeatScan To Office Software - White
Customer Review: Excel support wonderful and awful
Summary: 3 Stars
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
First things first; this product requires Microsoft Office software to work; version 2003 or above. The scanner software will not install if you do not have Office.
The packaging and product are top-notch quality. Everything is well-organized, and the "Quick Start Guide" actually has enough useful information to get up to speed with this product, instead of a few pictures with arrows.
The scanner itself is lightweight, and sturdy. It has a "PDF" and a "SCAN" button, and an LED on indicator. It comes with a calibration sheet, and a dry and wet cleaning sheet. The wet cleaning sheet is used if you accidently scan something gummy or gunky.
The install program adds a toolbar to Office applications; each one has specific features depending on the application. For Outlook, if you have a "New Contact" form open, the toolbar will expect that you will be scanning in a business card, which worked generally well. It guessed the company name, person name, title fairly well. The OCR software did not handle "Fancy" fonts very well. An image of the business card is placed in the contact information for easy reference.
For Word, it worked pretty well. If you choose Text only, no layout at all, except maybe some spacing, is retained. Choosing Full Document places each block of text in a separate text box, which can make editing the document somewhat tedious. For a directory listing in a table, it imported the text perfectly into a table format.
For Excel, it is feast or famine. Scanning in normal mode, you get famine--just an image pasted into the spreadsheet. In "Neat Sheet" (spreadsheet template) mode, it is wonderful for scanning in receipts, bills, etc. It will scan the receipt, and it has a built-in list of dozens of layouts for common items, such as car rentals, utilities, airlines, grocery stores, and much more. It also handles unrecognized receipts quite well, usually picking out the total, tax, date, store, and payment type such as MasterCard or cash. I had to smooth out a particularly wrinkled receipt, but other than that it was very slick. It then places a new row in the spreadsheet for each receipt, with columns for Company, expense category, etc.
For all applications, my chief annoyance is that you need to make any option settings before you start the scan; such as Image Only, Text Only, or Full Document, and whether to save as an attachment or imbed in the document.
Also, you need to have a Word/Excel/Powerpoint document, either an existing one or a blank one, open, in order to use the "SCAN" button on the scanner.
On the plus side, the software installed easily, and doesn't use much memory; less than 100 MB when active. It takes from 15 to 30 seconds to scan a page, and another 15 to 30 seconds to process/OCR the page.
The OCR works quite well for standard fonts. I scanned in a page containing 4-up page layouts and the OCR was quite accurate even on the tiny text.
The PDF feature works pretty well. The PDF document appears as the scanned image, but you can select the text (including any text in illustrations) and copy/paste the text. The only drawback is there could be typos from OCR errors in the copied text. You can also do searches on the text. You are given the opportunity for PDFs to scan several pages into one document.
The storage pouch is very nice, but doesn't have much room in it for the USB cable.
Customer Review: Check the Specs. .
Summary: 3 Stars
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
UPDATE: I finally have upgraded to the point of being able to use and appreciate this fine device, and so far I am enjoying it tremendously. I have not had a chance to write a full review as yet, so please stand by and watch for one soon.
I'd been looking forward to trying this model out, and seeing if any of the complaints about it I had read previously had been addressed. I was prepared for the fact that the NeatScan would not work on my workhorse old desktop, a Win98 machine in perfect working order. I plan to upgrade it to XP one of these days, but for now, I allowed that my laptop- a vintage XP unit- would probably be able to handle it, if being slightly less convenient to use.
The install started fine, unlike on the 98 machine. (Yeah, I tried anyway, I like to see how their install software handles it. In this case, it said it needed "Windows 2000 Service Pack Three or better".) But on the second screen on the laptop, it hung. I gave it ten minutes, during which time I heard the drives rattling and saw processor activity in Task Manager. I decided enough was enough and now there was another hardware issue, this machine met the low-end specs but is also a relic. I began to cancel the application, and then it suddenly began to continue. Hmm. So far so good- until another halt screen informed me that it needed MS Office 2003 or better, thanks and bye.
I was aware of the OS requirements, but in initial perusal of the product listing I did not see anything about which version of Office to use. If it's there, I haven't found it yet, I wanted to be sure before posting this review. As far as a description, here is about all I found under the description:
Product Features
· Installs a Scan button in all your MS Office applications
· Scans directly to Office applications
· Mobile, easy to carry scanner goes everywhere
· Boost productivity and cut down on re-typing, cutting and pasting
Technical Details
· Scanner Type: Sheetfed
· Optical Resolution: 600 dpi
· Maximum Document Size: 1 x 1 up to 8.5 x 14 (up to 30 long)
· Interface Connectivity: USB 2.0
· Power Source: USB Powered
So, it looks like a nice little unit, but until I score a copy of MSO 2K3, I will be unable to report further. If I do, (and it hasn't gone obsolete yet!) I will be providing a real review, possibly video.
I can only advise that when purchasing any PC device or software online, no matter how much you want to hope that: just because they left it out doesn't mean it still might work- contact the vendor or mfr. to be sure.
Customer Review: Pretty Disappointing - cute but a little deceiving
Summary: 3 Stars
I was pretty happy with it at first. But I wanted to have you beware that although the progressing bar in the video seems to show that it scans pretty quickly. It's not true. It's not really a bar that shows progress. It just keep going down and up, but doesn't tell you how many % is done. You have to wait for it to scan and wait for it to convert. So that's kinda deceiving and annoying.
Then what's even more annoying is that the scanned page keep showing two lines vertically down the page. I've tried the dry cleaning sheet multiple times at first and it worked. But then it didn't work and I have to use the alcohol sheet to clean. Now that can only be used once and the lines keep showing up again. I cleaned three times and it's still as bad.
I'm getting frustrated with this scanner... Afterall, I've only mainly used it for scanning pdf. I'm starting to wonder if I should have tried the pentax or iriscan instead.
At least, I don't think this NeatScan to Office should be so expensive. Just in the buying process was annoying enough. I have to exchange it for multiple times just because it keep showing up with stains on the surface of the scanner.
Customer Review: Good for documents but not for photos
Summary: 3 Stars
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
About the size of a small rolling pin and weighing just 12.8 ounces in its cloth carrying pouch this scanner fits easily in a computer bag, is powered by the computer's USB port and does a decent job of scanning documents. One very nice feature is its ability to scan directly into a portable document format (PDF) without the need for owning Adobe Acrobat, but I was unimpressed with its OCR (optical character recognition) software capabilities and the quality of its scanned photos. Aside from creating documents with its own software this scanner supports TWAIN scanning through any other software supporting this feature. This scanner is sold as a solution for road warriors who need to scan receipts and other documents while traveling and it works well for that. However it won't replace a good flatbed scanner which will produce better-looking documents and photos, costs less, but isn't as portable.Customer Review: I'm a Mac guy...
Summary: 3 Stars
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
This product looks amazing and I'm trying to put it in the hands of a friend who's a PC guy, because, unfortunately, I'm a Mac user and this doesn't yet interface with a Mac. The packaging and the product description don't specify Windows, so you can't really tell upon close inspection.
That said, it looks great. The packaging and the heft of the device make it all seem like it would work really well and I give them kudos for coming up with a great product idea. I will edit my review as soon as a PC friend can let me know how well it really interfaces with the Microsoft Office products.